On 18 May 2026, the Financial Conduct Authority (“FCA”) and the Bank of England (“BoE”), including the Prudential Regulation Authority (“PRA”), published a joint call for input (“Call for Input”) seeking contributions from the industry on how to enable the safe adoption of tokenisation in UK markets. The deadline for responses is 3 July 2026.
Responses to the Call for Input are intended to inform a joint Roadmap between the FCA and BoE, building on the Government’s Wholesale Financial Markets Digital Strategy, with the ultimate aim of giving firms greater confidence to adopt tokenisation and distributed ledger technology (“DLT”) in a safe and scalable way.
Call for Input
A central theme of the Call for Input is the need for greater clarity on the regulatory and infrastructure conditions that will support tokenisation as it moves beyond experimentation towards a scaled adoption. Through engagement with stakeholders, the FCA and BoE have identified several priority areas where the industry has indicated that further clarity is needed. These are summarised below.
- Regulating the issuance and settlement of digital securities. The FCA and BoE’s ambition is a comprehensive regulatory regime for the issuance and settlement of digital securities that supports UK capital markets. There are currently 16 firms using the Digital Securities Sandbox (“DSS”), through which entrants can test the issuance, trading and settlement of tokenised securities in a live, regulated environment. The FCA and BoE would like to create a clear pathway for the DSS to move to permanent authorisation and will consider, with HM Treasury, whether to extend or further modify the DSS or make changes to the wider UK Central Securities Depositories Regulation framework.
- Prudential treatment of tokenised assets. The aim is to achieve equivalent prudential treatment of tokenised and non-tokenised assets. For PRA-regulated banks, building societies and designated investment firms, tokenised assets should receive the same prudential treatment as their non-tokenised equivalents. The PRA has published a Dear CEO letter setting out its interim expectations until it publishes its proposed future prudential framework. This priority area also extends to tokenised collateral eligibility, both in central bank operations and in central clearing at central counterparties.
- Access to innovative central bank money settlement. The BoE’s ambition is that digital asset ledgers will be able to access programmable settlement in central bank money. The BoE has already launched a live Synchronisation Lab with 18 participants and aims to enable atomic settlement of new digital asset ledgers in sterling central bank money via RTGS in 2028.
- Market functioning, issuance and custody. The FCA and BoE remain open to tokenised primary issuance and will allow non-natively tokenised securities in the same way as equivalent structures in traditional finance. In relation to custody, the FCA has decided not to take forward its proposal to apply CASS 17 to specified investment cryptoassets (“SICs”) and will instead consider whether and how the safeguarding framework for SICs may require change. There is also reaffirmed support for HM Treasury’s Digital Gilt Instrument (“DIGIT“) pilot, which is regarded as a key initiative to catalyse UK-based DLT infrastructure and demonstrate commitment to tokenisation in capital markets.
Other Measures
The Call for Input forms part of a wider package of measures published alongside it, each of which is relevant to the development of tokenised wholesale markets.
- Extended RTGS and CHAPS settlement hours. The BoE has published a consultation paper on extending RTGS and CHAPS settlement hours, with steps towards near 24/7 settlement. The BoE previously shared the news that CHAPS will open from 1.30am instead of 6.00am from September 2027 and is consulting on further extensions, including weekend and extended daily operating hours.
- Innovations in the use of deposits, e-money and stablecoins. The BoE has also published a Dear CEO Letter to reaffirm its position and clarify its expectations on innovations in the use by deposit-takers of deposits, e-money and regulated stablecoins.
- Stablecoin regime. The FCA is expected to publish policy statements and final rules within the next few months for the UK stablecoin regime and prudential and safeguarding rules for qualifying cryptoassets. It is anticipated that the BoE’s regime for systemic stablecoins will also be published this year.
Next steps
The deadline for responses to the Call for Input is 3 July 2026 and a feedback statement is expected later in the summer. The FCA and the BoE expect industry feedback to inform future work and the development of a joint roadmap for digital wholesale markets. Firms may also wish to track the DSS and the BoE’s planned live synchronisation service targeted for 2028.
The Call for Input can be found here. The BoE’s RTGS and CHAPS consultation paper and Dear CEO Letters can be found here, here and here.